From the Mouth of a Child
by Itarille
Summary: Maglor meets a young boy in a department store. Holiday fluff.


Disclaimer: Maglor is not mine, he is owned by Tolkien's estate. But I wish he was mine.  
  
Thanks to Nerdanel for beta reading.  
  
It was the last shopping day before Christmas, and usually the frenzied shoppers moved aside for no one. However, each one instinctively knew that this man, if that was what he was, was different. Long dark hair spilled down his back, and his clothes were shabby, the type of person mothers usually yanked their children away from. However, there was something in his eyes that seemed to exude nobility. Though they would not have known it, he was one of the Eldar, an elf.  
  
Maglor could see as he walked past them that they were awed or scared by him. It was the normal reaction. He usually kept to the beach, but he was a wanderer and this time his travels had brought him here. He hadn't realized it was time for their favorite holiday until he got here. If he had, he wouldn't have come into the city. However, he needed new clothing and a new pocketknife. He had pawned his last knife for food. As he had been walking through the city, something had drawn him in here. Fingering the little bit of money he had, he knew it wasn't enough to buy anything in the upscale department store. But this was what he had done for thousands of years, gone where his heart told him to, so he had come in.  
  
However, he was beginning to regret it. The people around him were stepping away from him, but still he felt suffocated. He had not been near this many people in years. He was looking for the exit, when he somehow ended up in the toy department. Seeing the department store Santa in the corner with a crowd of children, Maglor scowled. Any meaning this holiday had once had was lost. The race of men had steadily become greedier and greedier. He felt a tug on his sleeve, and looked down. A little boy with dark hair was standing in front of him nervously, clutching a Santa toy to his chest. He wiped his runny nose with one sleeve, then seeing he had the strange man's attention backed up a bit, but smiled.  
  
"Are you one of Santa's elves?" he asked hopefully. Maglor felt for his hair and realized one piece had fallen back, revealing one of his ears.  
  
"No," Maglor replied shortly, looking around for the child's mother somewhere in the sea of shoppers.  
  
"I didn't think so. You're too tall, and you don't look very jolly," the boy replied, his smile widening to show a missing front tooth. Maglor, not knowing what to reply to that, began to turn away. However, some paternal instinct in him, long buried though it was, was telling him not to leave the child alone amid all these people. He sighed to himself. The boy was exasperating, still smiling his toothless smile.  
  
"That's because I'm not jolly," Maglor said finally, hoping the boy would be satisfied enough with the answer to leave. The boy nodded.  
  
"You look sad," he said. Maglor had had about enough of this child. He turned to leave, but the boy pulled on his sleeve. He was about to push his away when he realized how much the child resembled his foster sons. He certainly had the same frank honesty as the peredhil. He was flooded with memories, which he generally tried to avoid. Pushing them out of his mind, he turned to the child again.  
  
"I am sad. Now go find your mother," Maglor almost shouted, his patience worn thin.  
  
"Why?" the boy asked curiously. Maglor was speechless. How could this child expect to understand years of torment? He had lost his family one by one, he had lost the jewel, failed his father, and he would wander this earth in anguish forever, long after the boy was gone. Nothing the child could say, or do, would ever change that. What did this child know about life?  
  
The boy's mother appeared suddenly, horrified when she saw who her son was talking to. She grabbed his arm and dragged him away. Maglor looked at the floor, trying to stop the tears that were welling up.  
  
"Happy Holidays, mister. Be happy," he heard the boy say from somewhere behind him, as he was dragged away. Maglor turned around quickly to see the child one last time, but he was lost in the sea of shoppers, gone forever. Maglor wandered through the store until he found an exit, and escaped to the street outside, where he could breathe again. Somehow, he thought that the child knew more than he did about life. 


End file.
